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VHSL denies Giles bid to move down a classification.


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5 minutes ago, UVAObserver said:

Pocahontas’s size was never going to allow for an equal playing field with the other schools.  It’s somewhat like the Council problem in Buchanan County, except more accessible.  In retrospect, it needed to happen, but the way it happened was the epitome of dirty politicking.

I knew Pocy was small, I didnt know they were that small. That is a huge difference in enrollments, even though Grayson was already in the MED. When youre that small there is no even playing field.

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2 minutes ago, redtiger said:

I knew Pocy was small, I didnt know they were that small. That is a huge difference in enrollments, even though Grayson was already in the MED. When youre that small there is no even playing field.

Pocahontas jockeyed with Council for the title of “Smallest Public High School in Virginia” for quite some time.  The MED was the right fit for them when they existed, because schools like a Rocky Gap/Bland, Narrows, Galax, etc. were the most reasonable peers they could find.  
 

Unleashing Graham on the 1990s/2000s MED would have been like unleashing Shaquille O’Neal on the early 1950s NBA.  

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53 minutes ago, redtiger said:

Why was the choice play up or MED, why not let Graham into the Three Rivers?

Because Graham, Tazewell, and Richlands are joined at the hip and will be until the sun burns out or consolidation occurs.  The SWD was already light on numbers and losing 3 teams would have killed it.

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On 9/6/2020 at 1:11 PM, vtdavis4321 said:

Graham would have done well at the single A level from 72 through 85, which is where they should have been. Graham also would have done well in 93, 2000, and really from 2000-2004ish at the Group 2A level and not playing Div 3. The 93 team by seasons end was very good, and lost to a once in a generational type team in Jef. Forest in the semis. Hard to say what happens historically, but Graham, Richlands, Gate City, and Giles have been at the same level for a while now, and P. Valley/Union has gone 2 decades since winning a title.

One thing we can't account for and many forget about when discussing these things is not game 14 or 15 and which team is better on that game. It's about the wear and tear of playing the schedule of a higher level from games 1 through 13 and the competition getting there, and what competition does in the areas of injuries. I'm touching on the old Boise State argument and no question, as Boise demonstrated, they could play with and sometimes beat the elite Big 12/SEC schools in those Big Bowl games for one given game, but Boise wasn't going through the gauntlet like Oklahoma or Bama was week after week which tears into your depth chart. At the Div 3 level, Graham was playing the likes of 5A GW Danville, Blacksburg, Woodrow Wilson,  Greenville, TN, and just an absolute gauntlet of teams long before the state semis or state finals. Historically, nobody knows what would have happened, but Graham truly did play up for years.

Years I feel confident the GMen would have done well and very likely would have had a title if playing down were....

1976- Graham lost to BBurg who then lost to Martinsville 6-3 as time expired, and Martinsville lost state title to legendary Southampton in the title game as time expired. Graham beat Gate City in 76. In single A, Pennington lost the state title to Madison County by a TD.

1981, Graham lost at Martinsville (if I can call it that) and Martinsville lost at Tabb the following week in the title game.

1990, 

1993- one of the most underrated Graham teams. Lost 7-6 at Salem in a game Graham doubled Salem's total yardage and had 5 TOs. In the playoffs, Graham lost to a 2015 type Appo team in Jef. FOREST which was a once in a two decade type team. Giles won the Div 2 title and it's closest games were Blacksburg (beat em by a TD) and Haysi. Graham best Blacksburg by 2 TDs that year and led 26-7 until a last minute Blacksburg score. 

2001. That Graham team shouldn't have lost to Harrisonburg 

2003. Ahmad's senior year lost to again, what may have been a team of the decade in yr semis to Gretna. 

If Graham had played at their level, I think they have 6 more title minus one to equal 5 more. In 95, Graham wouldn't have beat Powell Valley. Graham had some good teams that they would have been in the conversation for in 1974, 1978 and 1984.  One of Gate Cities toughest contest on that legendary team was their 37-0 win over Graham, but a game that was 14-0 going I to the fourth. GC beat Southampton 28-7 in yr state finals. If Graham is single A in 74, they would have been in the mix for sure.

The '84 team lost two games by a total of two points (Bluefield 21-20 and Tazewell 7-6) in the regular season then got blasted in the first round by Blacksburg in what is still the coldest high school game I've ever been at.

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On 9/7/2020 at 4:12 PM, redtiger said:

If Graham "should have " been A why weren't they? What advantage was there in playing up in AA, other than keeping all of the Tazewell Co schools together?

Coach Carlock didn't believe in playing inferior opponents.

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18 hours ago, BigWinners said:

Some of you guys that were around for a long time, why did Graham never play any far SWVA teams OOC until more recently? PV and Richlands played off and on for years, but I'm not aware of any LPD team playing Graham during the 80s or 90s.

Coach Carlock knew that better competition was to the East, not the West..."iron sharpens iron"...

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9 hours ago, redtiger said:

The concept of "playing up" has never made sense to me and probably never will. So Carlock played up to face better competition and build better teams(we all know that how it works, cant play a weak schedule and get better) but for what? To play really strong teams that are twice your size? Doesn't make sense to me.

If you ever met Coach Carlock, you would understand why.

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52 minutes ago, GMan said:

If you ever met Coach Carlock, you would understand why.

 

59 minutes ago, GMan said:

The '84 team lost two games by a total of two points (Bluefield 21-20 and Tazewell 7-6) in the regular season then got blasted in the first round by Blacksburg in what is still the coldest high school game I've ever been at.

84 BBurg, for me personally, not just the coldest sporting event ever, but truly the coldest I have ever been and by quite a bit of margin.

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1 hour ago, GMan said:

Coach Carlock knew that better competition was to the East, not the West..."iron sharpens iron"...

Yeah, wasn't like there were a couple schools in the area that won about 20 state titles combined or anything. 

 

And let's not pretend he never went West, several matchups with Lee High in the 90s. Four games between 1992-95, Graham went 2-2.in same years, PV was 3-1 against Lee. 

seems like he would come west to play Lee, but didn't wanna take the risk of playing the very good D2 schools and possibly losing since a loss would hurt them quite a bit. it makes sense, but doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of actual competition for Graham this way.

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2 hours ago, BigWinners said:

Yeah, wasn't like there were a couple schools in the area that won about 20 state titles combined or anything. 

 

And let's not pretend he never went West, several matchups with Lee High in the 90s. Four games between 1992-95, Graham went 2-2.in same years, PV was 3-1 against Lee. 

seems like he would come west to play Lee, but didn't wanna take the risk of playing the very good D2 schools and possibly losing since a loss would hurt them quite a bit. it makes sense, but doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of actual competition for Graham this way.

We’re those matchups with Lee when Lee was in the SWD? Cause there was a time when the SWD was Richlands, Graham, Tazewell, Grundy, Lee and Carroll Co. 

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1 hour ago, Ryan4VT said:

We’re those matchups with Lee when Lee was in the SWD? Cause there was a time when the SWD was Richlands, Graham, Tazewell, Grundy, Lee and Carroll Co. 

Lee was never a member of the SWD.  They successfully appealed to drop to Group A when the Highlands District went belly up.  But a lot of SWD scheduled games with the Generals in a show of magnanimity.   Just FYI....

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5 hours ago, GMan said:

The '84 team lost two games by a total of two points (Bluefield 21-20 and Tazewell 7-6) in the regular season then got blasted in the first round by Blacksburg in what is still the coldest high school game I've ever been at.

That "inadvertant" Whistle changed the whole complexion of that game.  

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4 hours ago, BigWinners said:

Yeah, wasn't like there were a couple schools in the area that won about 20 state titles combined or anything. 

 

And let's not pretend he never went West, several matchups with Lee High in the 90s. Four games between 1992-95, Graham went 2-2.in same years, PV was 3-1 against Lee. 

seems like he would come west to play Lee, but didn't wanna take the risk of playing the very good D2 schools and possibly losing since a loss would hurt them quite a bit. it makes sense, but doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of actual competition for Graham this way.

It's much easier to ride a bus up 77-81.  Besides, it takes 2 AD's to reach out to get a game together, not one.

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3 hours ago, RichlandsAlum said:

Lee was never a member of the SWD.  They successfully appealed to drop to Group A when the Highlands District went belly up.  But a lot of SWD scheduled games with the Generals in a show of magnanimity.   Just FYI....

I thought they were a part of the district for a few years. Huh. Learn something new every day.

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14 hours ago, GMan said:

If you ever met Coach Carlock, you would understand why.

Its always been my understanding that he was cut from a different cloth and I absolutely respect that attitude, I just dont see how it helped Graham overall, and probably never will be able to. 

The G-Men were probably one of the two best schools in VA in their enrollment with PV being the other, but were they ultimately any more successful than if they would have played in A? Im not familiar enough with Graham to say but it doesn't seem so from the outside looking in. As many on here have said, they probably end up with the same number of titles, so I guess ts really a moot point. Its just always been something I was curious about.

GC played up for a few years (not as long as Graham) and that never made sense to me either. They played Appalachia and PV regularly as well as some other LPD teams, why not just play where you belong and compete in the LPD? 

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1 hour ago, redtiger said:

Its always been my understanding that he was cut from a different cloth and I absolutely respect that attitude, I just dont see how it helped Graham overall, and probably never will be able to. 

The G-Men were probably one of the two best schools in VA in their enrollment with PV being the other, but were they ultimately any more successful than if they would have played in A? Im not familiar enough with Graham to say but it doesn't seem so from the outside looking in. As many on here have said, they probably end up with the same number of titles, so I guess ts really a moot point. Its just always been something I was curious about.

GC played up for a few years (not as long as Graham) and that never made sense to me either. They played Appalachia and PV regularly as well as some other LPD teams, why not just play where you belong and compete in the LPD? 

There were some great D3 teams in Region C over the years.  Martinsville, Rustburg, Jefferson Forest all had dominant runs.  Those were the teams Graham wanted to compete against and beat, and occasionally did.  Having the 2D Championship be the de facto state title game every year never appealed to Carlock.

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15 minutes ago, UVAObserver said:

There were some great D3 teams in Region C over the years.  Martinsville, Rustburg, Jefferson Forest all had dominant runs.  Those were the teams Graham wanted to compete against and beat, and occasionally did.  Having the 2D Championship be the de facto state title game every year never appealed to Carlock.

Stronger overall competition makes sense if youre trying to test yourself vs the best. Exact opposite mindset of Riverheads. Ive got a TON of respect for that

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7 hours ago, Ryan4VT said:

I thought they were a part of the district for a few years. Huh. Learn something new every day.

A lot of flux within the AA ranks in Southwest Virginia from about 1995 onward, and there was a lot of shifting to keep Region IV somewhat intact as a functioning entity.  

Since the Highlands had dwindled to three members with AA enrollment numbers at the time, the SWD was essentially Lee's only option back in 2007.  But travel times to/from Ben Hur were essentially prohibitive.  The shortest trip (Abingdon) was about an hour and a half.  The longest at the time (Carroll County) was about a three hour trip.  So the argument for a geographic hardship made a lot of sense.  Abingdon and Marion both came back into the SWD at that time (again, out of necessity), but Lee successfully opted out.

About ten years prior to that, the New River District folded when Radford finally dropped to Single A (the Bobcats had been "playing up" in a manner similar to Graham for many years by that point) and left only three teams remaining.  That's how Carroll County came into the SWD -- which was probably never a great fit either way.  There was talk of bringing Blacksburg and Christiansburg in as well (which apparently had strong support on the SWD side), but those schools opted to align with similar sized traveling partners toward the direction of Roanoke.

All of that maneuvering was the inevitable result of declining enrollment across Southwest Virginia.  The New River District was the bellwether during the 1980's for what eventually happened further west.  The VHSL's new four classification alignment could conceivably settle things in the region for a long time to come.

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2 hours ago, redtiger said:

 As many on here have said, they probably end up with the same number of titles, so I guess ts really a moot point. Its just always been something I was curious about.

 

With respect to those who hold a different opinion, I'm not one saying they end up with the same amount of titles.   Like I wrote, I think Graham in 1978, 1981, 1990, 1993, 2001, and 2003 win state titles, and they would have been in the mix in 1974 and 1984. I think they would have lost to PV in 1995.  So, in my opinion only, I think they would have very likely had 5 more state titles to their resume. Multiple examples given in the thread, for example, Graham 1993.  Giles win Div 2 state title and goes 14-0.  Closest games are Haysi and BBurg with Giles winning by a touchdown in both.  Graham in 1993 throttled Blacksburg 26-14, but a game that was 26-0 at one point and Blacksburg had a last minute score to make it 13-14 points.  Graham lost to an All American led Jefferson Forest team in Anthony Poindexter in a very competitive game in the semi's. 

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1 hour ago, UVAObserver said:

There were some great D3 teams in Region C over the years.  Martinsville, Rustburg, Jefferson Forest all had dominant runs.  Those were the teams Graham wanted to compete against and beat, and occasionally did.  Having the 2D Championship be the de facto state title game every year never appealed to Carlock.

I think it was a combination of travel considerations as well as the desire to play an appropriately challenging schedule.  Given Graham's proximity to the better roads within the region, it made a lot of sense for them to gravitate eastward for non-district match-ups.  And that relationship worked both ways -- with Blacksburg being a prime example. 

On the other hand, I know that Richlands has historically been very enthusiastic about a series with Blacksburg.  But that interest was extremely one-sided.  Given the Bruins' proximity to good travel options and quality opponents overall, that makes perfect sense from an objective standpoint.

It's also worth noting that scheduling of non-district games is an enormously complicated business.  It's pretty rare when two AD's find something that works within their mutual operating margins.  And if they do, they will go to great measures to preserve those relationships.

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4 hours ago, vtdavis4321 said:

With respect to those who hold a different opinion, I'm not one saying they end up with the same amount of titles.   Like I wrote, I think Graham in 1978, 1981, 1990, 1993, 2001, and 2003 win state titles, and they would have been in the mix in 1974 and 1984. I think they would have lost to PV in 1995.  So, in my opinion only, I think they would have very likely had 5 more state titles to their resume. Multiple examples given in the thread, for example, Graham 1993.  Giles win Div 2 state title and goes 14-0.  Closest games are Haysi and BBurg with Giles winning by a touchdown in both.  Graham in 1993 throttled Blacksburg 26-14, but a game that was 26-0 at one point and Blacksburg had a last minute score to make it 13-14 points.  Graham lost to an All American led Jefferson Forest team in Anthony Poindexter in a very competitive game in the semi's. 

 Not in 2003. 

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